Not Ready Yet
by menolly-au
Summary: While House & Wilson are on their post season 8 hiking trip Wilson is attacked by a bear. Written for Camp Sick! Wilson on Livejournal. House & Wilson friendship.


Wilson barely had time to react, let alone do anything to defend himself. He had a brief glimpse of a bear rushing towards him, then he felt something impact along his left side, taking his breath away and knocking him to the ground. Some instinct came to him through a wall of pain and he lay still, covering his head and neck with his arms, and playing dead. He heard snuffling sounds, and felt the earth moving around him, hot breath on his body. He waited, heart pounding, for the next blow, for claws to tear at his flesh. This wasn't how he wanted to die. He wasn't ready yet.

"Wilson!" He heard House's panicked voice with a rush of relief.

House had been almost clingy, for him, on this trip, reluctant to let Wilson out of his sight, as if Wilson was going to die when House wasn't watching. Wilson would look up and see House staring at him, gaze distant. He'd taken to saying 'not dead yet' whenever he caught House at it. House would scowl and make some type of joke and then look away.

Now he was here, putting himself in danger, putting himself between Wilson and the bear. He wanted to yell at him to stay away, but House was already shouting and making stamping noises with his feet, dragging the attention of the bear away from Wilson and onto himself. Wilson heard another sound, a spraying sound, and then the bear gave an outraged howl. Bear spray, he had one on his own belt, hadn't even had time to think about using it let alone get it off his belt. It was supposed to work, they said it would work. _Please let it work_, he prayed, eyes screwed shut against the pain.  
There were a few seconds of silence and then he felt hands pulling at him and he dragged his eyes open to see House, staring at him with worry written all over his face.

"Hey, House. Not dead yet," he wheezed, struggling to get air back into his lungs, and to breathe through the pain.

"What the hell happened? I was only gone a minute."

"A bear... " Wilson breathed out, and then tensed up and gasped as another wave of pain struck him, "hurts... ", he reached out blindly towards House with his hand and House briefly clasped it before turning away.

"Hold that thought, Wilson. I'll get the first aid kit." House stood up and Wilson blurrily saw him stumble unevenly to his pack, which he'd apparently thrown on the ground as he ran towards Wilson.

Wilson tried to look down at his side, but all he could see was blood and shredded shirt. He closed his eyes and let his head flop back onto the ground. House would take care of him.

When House returned he had two Vicodins in his hand.

"Here, take these. You're going to need them." House placed the capsules in Wilson's mouth and then held the water bottle to his mouth. Wilson took a couple of gulps to wash the pills down and House took the bottle away.

"Not too much, it'll come out the hole in your side."

"Is it..." Wilson said, trying again to look down at the wound.

"Don't know yet," House said tensely. "Now save your breath for a minute, you might need it." He turned his attention to Wilson's bloody side, reaching into the pack and coming up with a small bottle. "This is going to sting," he said and then Wilson felt something wet on his side and the pain went to a whole new level, he screamed and tried to arch away but House held him down. "That bear would have had all sorts of nasty bugs under its claws. You don't want to die of an infection before your five months are up, do you? The Vicodin will kick in soon."

Wilson could already feel the effects of the Vicodin creeping over him, blurring the edges of the pain and making his head swim, he couldn't imagine how House normally functioned on high doses of it. His body relaxed slightly and House loosened his grip.

"Now comes the fun bit. I need to stop the bleeding. Just gonna roll you over on your side."

Wilson felt his body tip over until he was lying on his right hand side. There was some pain but it was becoming very muted now, buried under the thick cloud of Vicodin. Then there were hands pressing something against his side. House's hands.

"How... how bad is it?" Wilson asked, hearing the slur in his words.

"Well, you're going to have some cool, bear claw shaped, scars but I think I can stop you from bleeding out."

"Great," Wilson said, not feeling very concerned now.

He lay still for a while, letting House tend to him. He wished he felt better so he could appreciate the novelty of Greg House doing first aid.

Wilson peered down at his side to see House fixing bandages and gauze over the whole area, hiding who knew what hideous mess underneath. The first aid kit looked decimated, lying discarded besides House.

"There's no antibiotics or penicillin in the kit. We need to get you back to town before infection takes hold." House waved his phone. "There's no reception on this thing," he said, pressing the buttons anyway as if that would magically make it start working.

"We're only a couple of hours from town." They hadn't planned on going much further, House's leg wasn't up to covering long distances on foot. Wilson had felt a little guilty about the hiking trip in the first place but he'd wanted to do this with House.

"You couldn't walk a couple of steps let alone a couple of hours. As well as a series of spectacular lacerations you have bruising all along your side, and I'm betting the best bed at the next hotel that a couple of your ribs are cracked. Not to mention that you'll start bleeding again and you're already bumping against empty."

Wilson took an experimental deep breath and winced. Yeah, maybe.

House stood up and looked around for his cane. "I'll go back and get help."

"No..." Wilson breathed, struck with fear at the idea of being left here alone, unable to defend himself if the bear returned. And with House making his way back down the track by himself.

"No choice." House found his cane and returned to Wilson's side. He reached down to Wilson's belt and unclipped the canister of bear spraying, pressing it into Wilson's hands. "Use this if the bear returns. _Don't_fall asleep. Think about that waitress you were eyeing up at breakfast, that will get you all hot and bothered." House stripped off his jacket and laid it over Wilson.

"No," Wilson protested, "you need it."

"And _you're_going into shock - you may have heard of that?" House pulled both of their packs over and rifled through the contents, there wasn't much in them, it was just supposed to be an easy day hike and they had wanted to travel light. Wilson had one of those emergency plastic ponchos in his and House opened it up and carefully placed it over Wilson's head. Wilson groaned as he accidentally rubbed against the wound. The Vicodin was still working but every movement set off the pain again.

House kept rummaging through the packs and when he got to the bottom of Wilson's his mouth quirked in a smile.

"Oreos, Wilson?" He produced the offending packet.

"_You _like them," Wilson said. When he'd gone to the condo to pack for their trip he'd grabbed the packet of Oreos he kept there for House and he'd been carrying it around ever since. He'd stashed it in his pack today at the last moment, thinking that their sudden appearance would give House a laugh. Which, it turned out, they had.

House tucked the Oreos next to Wilson. "In case you get hungry, bears don't like them anyway." He took one of the packs and eased it under Wilson's head. He put one of the water bottles within easy reach and then kicked some loose dirt and twigs over the blood stain besides him.

"Be careful," Wilson blurted out.

House looked at him and hesitated, Wilson wondered if he was searching for words of reassurance, those empty promises people make in times of stress. Words that didn't come easily to him. For a moment Wilson thought he had found them but then House just nodded sharply.

Wilson watched House until he was well out of sight. He moved quickly for a disabled man who'd already had a long day. Maybe he'd find someone on the trail who could get into town quicker and send help. Maybe.

Wilson huddled under his clothes, it was a warm spring day but his body was going into shock just as House had said and he found himself shivering. His whole left side was throbbing with pain and he felt giddy and weak from the blood loss. He checked he had the bear spray where he could get at it quickly. The bear shouldn't come back. Mostly bears only attacked when humans surprised them, or caught them with their cubs. That's what people said anyway. Wilson picked the spray up ready.

He shifted uncomfortably on the ground, lying here was going to get old pretty quickly. There was a tree trunk behind him and he slowly and painfully dragged himself along the ground so he was half sitting up against it. That made him feel more secure, having something at his back. He scanned the area around him but it seemed clear of any immediate threats. Only half an hour ago he'd been happily hiking along the trail with House, now here he was, a tasty lunch snack for any carnivorous wildlife that wandered along.

He fingered the packet of Oreos that House had left with him, typical House move, leaving him with a packet of food he didn't like. Then he smiled at the memory of their 'dinner date' with House wooing him with nostalgia, and then a dessert of Oreos, designed to get Wilson to remember the good times and agree to try chemo. He'd been angry at the time, but now he realised it was a sign just how desperate House had been, and how much their shared history meant to him. Their friendship summed up in an Oreo cookie. Good times and bad times.

He was getting warmer and he felt both restless and incredibly fatigued. He let his head flop back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes, still holding tight to the cookies.

* * *

_Wilson surveyed the remains of their bag with his hands on his hips and pursed lips._

_"I told you it needed to be higher," he said, glaring at the most annoying person he'd ever met in his life - Gregory House._

_He'd been woken at five on the Saturday morning of a holiday weekend - his first extended break since he started his residency at Massachusetts General. Three days off to do nothing but sleep and he'd opened the door to find House standing there, and an old beaten car parked haphazardly outside the apartment. House was practically vibrating with his usual, barely controlled, energy. Wilson thought he was the most alive person he'd ever met._

_He'd spent a couple of days in House's company after his little incident with the police in New Orleans three months back. He'd found the guy both highly irritating and strangely compelling. House was a livewire that Wilson struggled to keep up with. They'd had fun, and then gone back to their respective hospitals. Wilson had thrown himself into his residency, and House was finishing up a nephrology fellowship at nearby Winchester. They'd met a couple of time for drinks at Wilson's instigation but this early morning visit came out of the blue._

_"Come on, Wilson - time to get going, those trails aren't going to hike themselves." House said, brushing past him and into the apartment, "where's your camping gear? And what's for breakfast?"_

_At this precise moment Wilson didn't know why he'd agreed to go camping with House. Their bear bag was a torn mess, lying on the ground, and all their food was gone. House had said he knew what he was doing, sounding for all the world like Grizzly Adams incarnate, when he'd strung the bear bag up. He'd lectured Wilson on the correct way to do it, which seemed to involve throwing a rock wrapped around with rope at a tree over and over until it miraculously ended up in the right place. Wilson had eyed the bag hanging off a branch and queried whether it was high enough to stop a bear getting at it. Looks like he'd been right._

_"Smart bear," House remarked, poking at the remains of the bag and the rope it had been strung by, "I think he undid some of the knots."_

_Wilson stared at him, beyond exasperation. House looked back up at him and grinned. Wilson found himself grinning back, it was sort of funny._

_"Hey!" House pushed a scrap of fabric aside. "Oreos!" He triumphantly waved a full packet of Oreo cookies. "He didn't get these."_

_Wilson thought the bear had good taste._

_It was a long hike back down the trail. After the first few miles Wilson asked the question that had been bothering him._

_"House? Why did you want to go camping this weekend? I haven't heard from you in weeks, and then you suddenly turn up on my doorstep, at five in the morning."_

_House looked at him and then looked away._

_"Nothing else to do this weekend. I got canned on Wednesday."_

_"From Winchester?"_

_House nodded, still looking at the ground, watching their feet. "Yep. Atkins and I had a little disagreement over the right course of treatment for one of his patients."_

_"And he was right?"_

_"No," House looked up, a smug expression on his face. "I was right."_

_"But you still got fired?"_

_House shrugged, his face darkening. "Turns out being right isn't always enough."_

_Wilson didn't know what to say, being fired was completely outside of his experience. He'd be devastated if something like that happened, but House hardly seemed bothered. "What are you going to do?"_

_House shrugged. "I've got an interview with Princeton General next Thursday."_

_So he would be moving away from Boston. Wilson wondered if this trip was House's unique way of saying goodbye._

_House opened the packet of Oreos and took one out, munching happily on it with little sounds of satisfaction._

_"You sure you don't want one?" he waved a cookie obnoxiously under Wilson's nose._

_"I don't like the black stuff," Wilson explained, eyeing it warily. He was hungry but not that hungry._

_House looked at him, tilting his head, his sharp eyes examining Wilson. "You don't like the black stuff? But you like the creamy filling?"_

_When he was a kid Wilson used to lick the filling off the hated black cookies. His Mom had smiled indulgently at the waste of good food, his Dad had told him to stop being a baby and eat the whole cookie or nothing at all. So Wilson had stopped eating them at all. But he did like that filling. And he was hungry._

_He took the cookie from House's hand and rotated both halves expertly, revealing the treasure within. He carefully licked it all up, feeling like a kid again. When he was finished he looked around for something to put the cookies in when House snatched them from his hand, stuffing them into his own mouth. Wilson gaped at him but House just laughed._

_"I don't mind sharing a little spit with you, Wilson. After all, I bailed you out of jail. In some cultures that means I own your soul." He dug into the packet and held out another Oreo. "Another one? it's a long way back."_

_When House dropped him back at his apartment on Monday afternoon Wilson was tired, and sore, he had a gash along his arm, a bruise on one cheek and blisters on his feet. He'd had a great time. He'd never had a friend like House before._

_House waved a hand at him as he drove off, yelling out the car window._

_"See you in Princeton sometime."_

* * *

"Wilson!" He heard the voice as if from a long distance, interrupting his sleep, he tried to shrug it off but a hand kept shaking his shoulder. There were other voices and he opened his eyes with a tremendous effort to see a couple of paramedics with a stretcher setting up next to him. The sun was low in the sky, a cool wind blowing. He was still alive and House was leaning over him, his face grey and tired, drawn with pain and worry lines.

"House... " he said, then trailed off, he felt strange. Hot and sick, and shivery. His eyes wouldn't focus. But House was here so everything was going to be okay. He felt cool fingers touching his forehead, taking his temperature and he smiled up into the worried blue eyes of his friend. "... I don't want to die."

"You're not going to, we're going to get you back to the hospital. It's not the Mayo Clinic but they should be able to cope with a few lacerations and an infection without stuffing it up."

"No...", Wilson tugged at House's shirt, ignoring the efforts of the paramedics who were checking his wounds. He needed to make him understand. "I mean I don't want to die, I'm not ready. I need more time. _We_need more time. Five months isn't enough."

There was a brief lightening of House's worried expression, a look of hope. Wilson relaxed, House understood.

"If you guys are finished, we need to get you back to town," one of the paramedics said. Wilson laid back and let them get him ready. The pain was bad as he was lifted and put onto a stretcher but House gripped his hand tightly. Wilson closed his eyes and let them take care of him.

* * *

The chemo suite was designed to be as soothing as possible. Wilson sat back in the comfortable armchair and put his feet up as the toxins dripped into his veins. They'd found the most out of the way place they could, and checked that no-one worked there who'd worked with either of them before. House was using an assumed name and was clean shaven, with a buzz cut. Wilson's ribs were still sore but there was no longer any sign of infection, and the lacerations on his side had healed well. He was as ready for this as he was ever going to be. He felt a moment of doubt, of second thoughts.

Then House rummaged in the bag he'd brought with him, before holding out a crumpled package of cookies.

"Want an Oreo?"

Wilson took one, twisting the cookie apart and licking at the cream. Yeah, that was as good as ever.

He looked up and met House's eyes. "Thanks, House. Just what I needed."

The End


End file.
